^^
That might lead to something like broadband divide.
Urban areas will get treated better..

yes,One of the reasons why European countries have better broadband is due to the better regulator..

why,why,why dont TRAI revise the broadband speeds periodically?

Last time i heard something about encouraging local traffic.
How it sucks not have a decent hosting at reasonable prices and reliability here.

^^
That might lead to something like broadband divide.
Urban areas will get treated better..

yes,One of the reasons why European countries have better broadband is due to the better regulator..

why,why,why dont TRAI revise the broadband speeds periodically?

Last time i heard something about encouraging local traffic.
How it sucks not have a decent hosting at reasonable prices and reliability here.

OK, here's another *brilliant idea* for another theoretical plan the ISPs can introduce. It will cost ABSOLUTELY THE SAME for the ISPs and the customers yet will allow the customers to enjoy the highest speeds.

Here's the concept:

Change the meaning of the term "unlimited" to mean unlimited SPEED not DATA!

So the plan would be UNLIMITED DOWNLOAD SPEED (whatever the modem/DSLAM can pump) but there would be a monthly download limit which is the SAME theoretical limit as the 256k unlimited plan which is about 75 GB per month!

The prices can be the same or even raised slightly to say rs 1500 per month and most users would not even approach half their download limits...

It's a sweet idea, I hope the damn ISP officials can comprehend such stuff...

Yea no limits.

How about this:

Provide 2 mbps "unlimited" where:

For the first 50gb downloaded per month your speed is 2mbps,
For the next 50gb your speed is cut to 1mbps,
For the next 50gb your speed is further cut to 512kbps, and finally,
For over 150gb downloaded your speed is cut to 256kbps.

I'm sure the vast majority of users won't even approach the first 50gb but they will enjoy the speed of 2mbps and save time for other work in their daily lives...

There will be very few "power users" who might cross 50gb and almost nobody would cross 100gb.

I consider myself a regular downloader with my 256kbps unlimited. My average download history for the past 1 year is about 20gb per month! I've never felt the need to even approach the max 75gb you can do with my connection! If I were to get 2mbps unlimited, my downloads might go up by 5 gb due to watching online videos MAYBE... why don't the ISPs see this?

Why are the ISPs afraid of providing 2mbps unlimited? The data amount downloaded will be the SAME (maybe a little higher) as the 256k unlimited users, except the speed will be higher which costs nothing to enable in their server!!!

OK, here's another *brilliant idea* for another theoretical plan the ISPs can introduce. It will cost ABSOLUTELY THE SAME for the ISPs and the customers yet will allow the customers to enjoy the highest speeds.

Here's the concept:

Change the meaning of the term "unlimited" to mean unlimited SPEED not DATA!

So the plan would be UNLIMITED DOWNLOAD SPEED (whatever the modem/DSLAM can pump) but there would be a monthly download limit which is the SAME theoretical limit as the 256k unlimited plan which is about 75 GB per month!

The prices can be the same or even raised slightly to say rs 1500 per month and most users would not even approach half their download limits...

It's a sweet idea, I hope the damn ISP officials can comprehend such stuff...

Yea no limits.

How about this:

Provide 2 mbps "unlimited" where:

For the first 50gb downloaded per month your speed is 2mbps,
For the next 50gb your speed is cut to 1mbps,
For the next 50gb your speed is further cut to 512kbps, and finally,
For over 150gb downloaded your speed is cut to 256kbps.

I'm sure the vast majority of users won't even approach the first 50gb but they will enjoy the speed of 2mbps and save time for other work in their daily lives...

There will be very few "power users" who might cross 50gb and almost nobody would cross 100gb.

I consider myself a regular downloader with my 256kbps unlimited. My average download history for the past 1 year is about 20gb per month! I've never felt the need to even approach the max 75gb you can do with my connection! If I were to get 2mbps unlimited, my downloads might go up by 5 gb due to watching online videos MAYBE... why don't the ISPs see this?

Why are the ISPs afraid of providing 2mbps unlimited? The data amount downloaded will be the SAME (maybe a little higher) as the 256k unlimited users, except the speed will be higher which costs nothing to enable in their server!!!

No download limits. What purpose does it solve??

Retain the tarrif - but double the speed / download limit . is it ok fellows ?

Precisely the reason that it makes sense to fight for higher speeds. I think I got the reason. Either you reduce the prices for existing speeds or increase speeds for the same price. It is a perfectly valid argument. Baah....Why it didn't strike me before...

"As an example, today a BSNL DataOne Home 1800 broadband connection costs about Rs. 2000/- per month, if you include taxes, surcharge, modem rental costs, and exclude the landline rental and charges. That is roughly 30% to 50% (or one-third to half) of the amount you pay for your entire house rent! Compare that with other nations where, say, you pay 30 euros, or US $50 per month for broadband, which is only about 5% of your rent. Again, roughly speaking, broadband is TEN TIMES more expensive in India compared to other places, if you factor in economic terms such as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), cost-of-living, disposable-income, currency exhange rates etc."

What about this, argue based on the huge disparity of costs ?

and..

tell them that cell phone calls here are cheaper than those above countries :D

So it appears we have been able to do better in certain areas of telecom. Whether this is because vendors take a huge loss to get paid tomorrow is unknown.

Retain the tarrif - but double the speed / download limit . is it ok fellows ?

Precisely the reason that it makes sense to fight for higher speeds. I think I got the reason. Either you reduce the prices for existing speeds or increase speeds for the same price. It is a perfectly valid argument. Baah....Why it didn't strike me before...

"As an example, today a BSNL DataOne Home 1800 broadband connection costs about Rs. 2000/- per month, if you include taxes, surcharge, modem rental costs, and exclude the landline rental and charges. That is roughly 30% to 50% (or one-third to half) of the amount you pay for your entire house rent! Compare that with other nations where, say, you pay 30 euros, or US $50 per month for broadband, which is only about 5% of your rent. Again, roughly speaking, broadband is TEN TIMES more expensive in India compared to other places, if you factor in economic terms such as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), cost-of-living, disposable-income, currency exhange rates etc."

What about this, argue based on the huge disparity of costs ?

and..

tell them that cell phone calls here are cheaper than those above countries :D

So it appears we have been able to do better in certain areas of telecom. Whether this is because vendors take a huge loss to get paid tomorrow is unknown.

Competitive commission has been notified and this would make our job easier. However, it is like the classic case of who would bell the cat. What would you argue about the need for 2 mbps?

Yea, putting a reasonable limit to stop abusers is reasonable. But you can have a system like abroad: advertise it as unlimited but start warning users who download too much (over 100 gb a month)...

Competitive commission has been notified and this would make our job easier. However, it is like the classic case of who would bell the cat. What would you argue about the need for 2 mbps?

Yea, putting a reasonable limit to stop abusers is reasonable. But you can have a system like abroad: advertise it as unlimited but start warning users who download too much (over 100 gb a month)...

Hi

How about this

1. True 2 megabytes speed
2. Uploads not counted
3. 100 GB of download cap

Cheers

~Jay~

Hi

How about this

1. True 2 megabytes speed
2. Uploads not counted
3. 100 GB of download cap

Cheers

~Jay~

I had posted the following in an economic times online survey request before the last budget and it was even mentioned in an article in the paper a few days later:

VJR - Feb 15th, 2006

With lots of debate about India's infrastructure needs, we are forgetting about "Broadband Infrastructure". This is really another critical piece of the infrastructure which is being overlooked, and is as critical as Electricity and Roads.

Budget concessions for telecom equipment and services and other regulatory (TRAI/DoT) proactive decisions should help.

We need to compare, with other developed and developing nations, what costs we pay for and what quality we get with broadband Internet connections.

The top-class nations for broadband are those such as France, Japan, South Korea, Sweden etc., maybe even China and now the United Kingdom, with highly-affordable and high-speed multi-megabit-per-second (mbps) speeds for home users!

The nations with mediocre broadband quality are those such as the US, Australia, the UK, and even these places have much better quality of broadband.

Over here "quality" doesn't mean just "connectivity" (subcriber numbers), it also means cost, speeds, limitations for consumers. And the quality is poor right now - slow speeds (less than 256 kbps), download/upload (data transfer) monthly limits and quotas which you can consume within a few hours or a few days of usage, and be "stranded" for the rest of the month, or pay high costs per-MB of additional download.

As an example, today a BSNL DataOne Home 1800 broadband connection costs about Rs. 2000/- per month, if you include taxes, surcharge, modem rental costs, and exclude the landline rental and charges. That is roughly 30% to 50% (or one-third to half) of the amount you pay for your entire house rent! Compare that with other nations where, say, you pay 30 euros, or US $50 per month for broadband, which is only about 5% of your rent. Again, roughly speaking, broadband is TEN TIMES more expensive in India compared to other places, if you factor in economic terms such as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), cost-of-living, disposable-income, currency exhange rates etc.

There are many places online (discussion forums, blogs etc) where people gather to talk about the state of broadband Internet in India. Other examples of topics discussed - why don't ISPs/Telcos properly interconnect themselves and with outside links as "NIXI" is supposed to achieve http://www.nixi.org/ and various other topics.

Some recent links where it mentions France and Japan have got good broadband with PROPER Government "intervention" (regulation), and how the US is in a sorry state:

http://gigaom.com/2006/02/14/france-vs-us-in-broadband/
http://chrisholland.blogspot.com/2006/02/net-neutrality-and-sorry-state-of-us.html

Some online links:

http://broadbandforum.in/
http://broadbandblog.in/

http://wndw.net/ (free e-book download about wireless networking in the developing world)

http://www.vinuthomas.com/ (discussion forum)

I'm in Pune but I'll be glad to send letters/faxes etc to the right places to prod for 2mbps unlimited - true broadband.

It will be awesome to succeed the way 256kbps unlimited came about.

We can't just send demands for 2mbps unlimited. We need to provide data, reasoning for benefits to ordinary people and that this is not just a frivolous luxury.

We need sources of information to point out to the officials, which talk about economic and other benefits of broadband.

For example, with an affordable computer (Rs. 10,000/-) and fast and cheap Net connections, kids can learn and explore so much. They can do things like download and play with the latest free software (Linux, OpenOffice, FireFox etc) and who knows, someone might turn out to be the next Linux Torvalds or RMS :-)

Having affordable and widespread true broadband would just cement India's promise of being an intellectual, IT superpower.

Broadband should be thought of just another pillar of India's infrastructure to help it in becoming the next world superpower....

I had posted the following in an economic times online survey request before the last budget and it was even mentioned in an article in the paper a few days later:

VJR - Feb 15th, 2006

With lots of debate about India's infrastructure needs, we are forgetting about "Broadband Infrastructure". This is really another critical piece of the infrastructure which is being overlooked, and is as critical as Electricity and Roads.

Budget concessions for telecom equipment and services and other regulatory (TRAI/DoT) proactive decisions should help.

We need to compare, with other developed and developing nations, what costs we pay for and what quality we get with broadband Internet connections.

The top-class nations for broadband are those such as France, Japan, South Korea, Sweden etc., maybe even China and now the United Kingdom, with highly-affordable and high-speed multi-megabit-per-second (mbps) speeds for home users!

The nations with mediocre broadband quality are those such as the US, Australia, the UK, and even these places have much better quality of broadband.

Over here "quality" doesn't mean just "connectivity" (subcriber numbers), it also means cost, speeds, limitations for consumers. And the quality is poor right now - slow speeds (less than 256 kbps), download/upload (data transfer) monthly limits and quotas which you can consume within a few hours or a few days of usage, and be "stranded" for the rest of the month, or pay high costs per-MB of additional download.

As an example, today a BSNL DataOne Home 1800 broadband connection costs about Rs. 2000/- per month, if you include taxes, surcharge, modem rental costs, and exclude the landline rental and charges. That is roughly 30% to 50% (or one-third to half) of the amount you pay for your entire house rent! Compare that with other nations where, say, you pay 30 euros, or US $50 per month for broadband, which is only about 5% of your rent. Again, roughly speaking, broadband is TEN TIMES more expensive in India compared to other places, if you factor in economic terms such as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), cost-of-living, disposable-income, currency exhange rates etc.

There are many places online (discussion forums, blogs etc) where people gather to talk about the state of broadband Internet in India. Other examples of topics discussed - why don't ISPs/Telcos properly interconnect themselves and with outside links as "NIXI" is supposed to achieve http://www.nixi.org/ and various other topics.

Some recent links where it mentions France and Japan have got good broadband with PROPER Government "intervention" (regulation), and how the US is in a sorry state:

http://gigaom.com/2006/02/14/france-vs-us-in-broadband/
http://chrisholland.blogspot.com/2006/02/net-neutrality-and-sorry-state-of-us.html

Some online links:

http://broadbandforum.in/
http://broadbandblog.in/

http://wndw.net/ (free e-book download about wireless networking in the developing world)

http://www.vinuthomas.com/ (discussion forum)

I'm in Pune but I'll be glad to send letters/faxes etc to the right places to prod for 2mbps unlimited - true broadband.

It will be awesome to succeed the way 256kbps unlimited came about.

We can't just send demands for 2mbps unlimited. We need to provide data, reasoning for benefits to ordinary people and that this is not just a frivolous luxury.

We need sources of information to point out to the officials, which talk about economic and other benefits of broadband.

For example, with an affordable computer (Rs. 10,000/-) and fast and cheap Net connections, kids can learn and explore so much. They can do things like download and play with the latest free software (Linux, OpenOffice, FireFox etc) and who knows, someone might turn out to be the next Linux Torvalds or RMS :-)

Having affordable and widespread true broadband would just cement India's promise of being an intellectual, IT superpower.

Broadband should be thought of just another pillar of India's infrastructure to help it in becoming the next world superpower....